CANAAN VALLEY, W.Va. — Lessons on how to survive are being offered this summer at Canaan Valley Resort in Tucker County.
Mark Chapin with Mountaineer Wilderness based in northern Virginia is one of the instructors for the workshops that continue in August after a series of classes this past weekend.
The workshops cover backcountry navigation, fundamental wilderness skills like how to build shelters and make fire and identification of edible plants.
“If you have these skills, you have a lot more confidence in your ability to get through a situation out there,” Chapin told MetroNews.
“Maybe we knew them at one time when we were in Scouts or did a lot of camping or something and then we forget them, like using a map and compass. Most people don’t really know how to use a map and compass or they’ve long forgotten.”
Dates for upcoming workshops are as follows:
Edible Plants
Aug. 18, Aug. 25, Sept. 1, Sept. 29
Wilderness Skills, designed to prepare the “Ultimate Survival Kit”
Aug. 18, Sept. 1
Backcountry Navigation
Aug. 25
In West Virginia’s Potomac Highlands, “People do go up and get lost, get stranded and find themselves in a survival situation even though it seems like a pretty benign environment to most people,” Chapin said.
More information about the workshops is available HERE and HERE.